South Carolina men's basketball excited for Clemson trip despite recent struggles

South Carolina men’s basketball left Colonial Life Arena on Saturday night putting together a dismal 3-for-23 performance from deep against the nation’s No. 359-ranked team, according to KenPom.

On Tuesday night, those same Gamecocks head to Littlejohn Coliseum to face their biggest rival, Clemson, which ranks No. 30 in the KenPom.

After such a miserable evening against The Citadel Bulldogs, South Carolina knows it can’t carry that kind of performance into Clemson. Additionally, the team recognizes that numerous areas need improvement.

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“You know, I don’t know if it resonates with them as much,” Paris said of the Carolina-Clemson rivalry. “As you know, we have a lot of new guys. I don’t know that it resonates with as much pop as it generally has, so we’ll play that up some.

“But, you know, you were at the game today. We have so many things that we have to concentrate on [improving].”

In addition to the poor shooting against The Citadel, the Gamecocks gave up a career-high 18 points to Carter Kingsbury. Before Saturday, Kingsbury had yet to score 15 points in a game in his career.

The South Carolina defense remained lackluster throughout Saturday’s game. Something that Lamont Paris voiced his concern with post-game was the lack of preparedness his Gamecocks had.

Despite this, guard Meechie Johnson is excited to head back to Clemson. His last trip to the Tigers’ home arena saw South Carolina fall short, 72-67. Johnson, against the Tigers in 2023, contributed a team-high 26 points and four assists in the five-point loss.

In order to beat the Tigers, Johnson said the team needs to do “everything.”

“It’s gonna be one of our most competitive, toughest games that we come out ready to play,” Johnson said. “You can’t control if the ball is going in from three or not, but we’re going to be able to take care of everything else.”

It’s basketball, shots are not going to fall every single night, Kobe Knox said.

“We got a mature group, and we know we got to move on, especially for the big game on Tuesday,” Knox said. “This is my first year in that rivalry, and just hearing from different guys that already played in this, we can’t let this bad shooting game carry on to Tuesday.”

To Paris, the more important thing is that it is another opportunity to get a Quad 1 win for the NET rankings. South Carolina’s previous attempts at the Greenbrier Tip-Off event fell short in two close losses to Butler and Northwestern.

” You know, we had two teams in West Virginia that both were quad one opportunities at the time. Those are coveted,” Paris said. “… It’s just a great opportunity to go up there. You know their campus, some of the kids have been talking about it, I’m sure, leading up to it. But, more than anything, I think it’s just a great chance for us to go up and beat a good team.”

Johnson remembers the feeling after leaving Littlejohn Coliseum in 2023 following the loss.

“How they heckled you and talked to you and yelled at you, guys got to be ready to play this game,” Johnson said. “This game is not just for us, it’s for the whole state. It’s for the whole [of] Columbia. Everybody’s going to be watching. … Just got to be ready to go, nothing else to talk about, just got to be ready to go.”

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